Serpent & Dove

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5 Min Read

Good Evening,

Tonight we are diving into the fantasy world of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin.

Quick synopsis: Louise Le Blanc fled her coven two years ago and took cover in the city of Cesarine, giving up all of her magic and living off of anything she can steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted, feared, and burned.
Reid Diggory is a huntsman of the church, who lives his life protecting the people of the city from witches. When Lou pulls a wicked stunt, the two are forced into an impossible situation - marriage.
Unable to ignore their growing feelings, and yet powerless to change who they are, they must make a choice. Love or life. 

Non-spoiler review:
Now before you go and roll your eyes at the synposis, let me start by saying that, I get it. I went into this story with little to no expectations. Honestly I was thinking it would be another teen fantasy drama that I could read quickly and move on from. But alas, I was wrong.

This book gave me everything I want from a fantasy novel. A really cool magic system with some dangerous consequences, great back story as to why the world is the way it is, a real female main character with more to her than her beauty, and of course one of my favorite tropes, “touch her and die.” 🙃

One of my favorite things about Reid, is that he took his wedding vows seriously. Even when he barely knew Lou. In fact, he hated her. Which was funny to me. Lou is a potty mouthed, unladylike, wild woman and Reid is very much the opposite. Proper, polite, and put together. Every time she disobeyed him, or got into trouble, he stood by her side and defended her.

When they get married, Reid has no idea that she is a witch and Lou is terrified of what he might do to her when he finds out. Thus the struggle when they start to fall in love with each other.

Now to all you spicy readers out there, I am sorry to disappoint, but there was only one scene of spice…and it was hardly spicy. Just the way I like it. This is a YA novel after all. PG-13 if you will. They even allowed the obligatory one time use of the word, “fuck.”

Overall, this was great. This is a fun fantasy read that scratches the forbidden love itch with a heavy dose of magic.

Now, on to the good stuff…

BEWARE: Spoilers ahead:
We meet Lou and her friend, Coco, right as they are scheming to steal a magical ring. Lou needs it to protect herself from her. Yes that’s all we get for about half the book. We don’t know how “she” is, but we know Lou is terrified of her. If you’re like me, my eyes rolled a little when “she” was mentioned, because I immediately thought, “oh well that’s her mother.”

Spoiler, it is.

We learn that Lou’s mother only gave birth to use her in a sacrifice to end all of the suffering of the witches. Trust me, there’s definitly more to that story. We’ll get there.

When Lou and Coco eventually get the ring they have to go their seperate ways to try and hide from the huntsman going after them. In a weird chain of events, Lou physically runs into Reid and they get caught in a compromising postion. To onlookers it appears as if Reid was trying to assault Lou, but that was not the case. Just an accident. In order to soften the public perception, the Archbishop forces the two to marry so that way Reid’s name will stay free and clear. Because in this world, husbands are allowed to do whatever they see fit to their wives. Oh joy.

In their first few weeks (months?) of marriage we get a lot of banter back and forth between the two. A few little glances, a couple of threats, and the tense hand placements.

Fast forward.

The two of them are finally letting their guards down around each other. Thus, their love starts to bloom. Just as Lou is about to tell Reid who she really is - all hell breaks lose.

It comes out that the Archbishop actually had a relationship with a witch back in the day, and Lou was created. Plot twist number 1…or 2 I guess if you count “her” being Lou’s mother.

This is when Reid finds out Lou is a witch, and he loses his mind. Which I get. He was raised to hate witches his entire life. Now he is struggling with his love for her and his morals.

There is a great battle that takes place with the witches and huntsmen. During this Lou gets kidnapped by her mother.
Lou’s mother, Morgane, is the leader of the witches Lou comes from. Morgane is tired of the King killing all of her witch sisters, so she creates a ritual that will end his entire bloodline. She just has to sacrifice her own daughter to do so. In her eyes, ending her own bloodline is an even trade of ending the King’s. Plot twist number 3…Reid is a bastard son of the king. So he will be killed along with Lou and so will several other innocent children.

After some convincing from Lou’s friends, Reid agrees to go after her and save his wife. He is truly accepting that he loves her and still wants to do whatever he can to protect her. When they reach the witches’ castle, there is hundreds of witches there ready for the ceremony.

Another big battle ensues, lots of people injured, lives almost lost, Reid saves Lou from the sacrifice.

I know I am kind of breezing past this, but a lot happens in the last 30% of the book, ok? You’re just gonna have to read it yourself to get all of the fantastic details.

Oh and final plot twist, Reid finds out he has magic. (Loved all the plot twists in this story. I even left one or two out so you can find them yourself.)

That’s where the first book leaves us. In the next one I am assuming we will dive more into how he can have magic, repair the relationship between Reid and Lou, and learn more about blood witches.

For now, I will leave you with my favorite quote from the whole book, that happened on page 502.

“Why the fuck is everyone in this kingdom trying to murder my wife?” - Reid Diggory

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 Stars